Addio Reddit

It is also common ground, however, that the First Amendment does not guarantee the right to communicate one's views at all times and places or in any manner that may be desired.

Tempo fa rimasi colpito nel leggere questo orientamento della corte degli Stati Uniti dal quale ho tratto la precedente citazione.

La libertà di espressione è un diritto molto potente che ha storicamente molteplici interpretazioni. Benchè ingenuamente potrebbe essere inteso come la possibilità di manifestare qualsiasi idea, ci sono delle situazioni in cui si deve intendere come il diritto di un individuo minoritario nel poter esprimersi liberamente e senza ritorsioni.

Con questa premessa posso inquadrare più facilmente il motivo per cui ritengo che il ban del 2015 da parte degli amministratori di Reddit nei confronti di /r/FatPeopleHate e altri subreddit di minor dimensioni non sia stata un'azione ipocrita rispetto agli ideali della piattaforma.

Angela Nagle ci ricorda che quegli spazi online senza leader roccaforte di ideali minoritari di sinistra, hanno permesso di esprimere non un'idea, ma qualsiasi idea, anche di estrema destra. Diventa quindi inevitabile che una piattaforma delle dimensioni di Reddit, che nello specifico raccoglie una moltitudine di argomenti e discussioni grazie ai quali è stata ritenuta un bastione della eterogeneità, prima o poi debba adottare una linea di moderazione più definita.

Il recente ban invece non riguarda la libertà di espressione, e mi colpisce personalmente, nonostante io non abbia mai visitato alcuno dei subreddit recentementi banditi e le mie uniche transazioni si siano limitate agli utenti di r/MechanicalKeyboards.

Sono approdato a Reddit inizialmente a causa del mio hobby per le tastiere meccaniche. Da lì mi sono mosso verso r/italy e altri subreddit di indirizzo informatico. Ho interessi di nicchia e Reddit mi permetteva di riunirmi con persone dall'altra parte del globo che mi fornivano informazioni che non avrei potuto ottenere altrimenti.

Ora questo rimane valido solo per le persone i quali interessi sono allineati con quelle comunità che riflettono una buona immagine per Reddit e gli investitori. Benchè i miei subreddit di riferimento non siano stati banditi, riconosco che nel recente ban ci sono degli intenti politici o misteriosamente economici.

Con questo post dico addio a Reddit. Da spazio di discussione a spazio di intolleranza e divisione politica, dove delle comunità che non rientrano nei canoni di buona reputazione per delle agenzie pubblicitarie devono essere eliminate.

Non voglio che ogni mia parola sia pesata oltre i valori della comunità a cui sottoscrivo, non voglio fare esercizi di autocensura nei post che scrivo.

Aderivo a delle regole ben definite e delle quali gli amministratori si assumevano la responsabilità. Con il ban di marzo 2018 il sito che conoscevo ha cambiato faccia ed il post di un utente anonimo sarà l'ultimo post che downvoterò.

Minidox, a guide for the Europeans and the Scrooges

This guide is adapted from the Let's split guide.

It is tailored between the Scrooges like me and all the europeans that couldn't find some TRRS jacks.

Helpful references

• /u/that-canadian's original build log

Parts

• PCBs - You will need two of them and you should participated in the group buy.
• 2 ATmega32U4 - 5V/16MHz Pro Micros, you can find them easily on ebay or amazon.
• 36 1N4148 diodes, easy to source, even real world shops has them.
• 2 TRRS or TRS jacks our source of all problems, this build log will do without.
• Plate, from u/dotdash32 or pjones, 3D printable.
• 36 Switches of your choice
• 36 Keycaps of your choice
• TRRS or TRS cable No jacks, no cable.

Cost Breakdown

This is a very cheap build, mine was about 30 € given that I already had the keycaps.

Mount the Diodes

Diodes allow current to flow in one direction only. Mount the diodes with the black (negative, cathode) line facing the thicker line.

Double check your work.

Tip: Lightly tack each diode in from the top. This will keep them snug against the surface once we flip it over and do the real soldering from the bottom. You only need a tiny amount of solder here and you should still be able to see through the hole.

Connect Jumpers

This part is not really needed, but you may want to do it in case you will mount the TRRS jacks in the future.

On the underside of the PCB, right below the TRRS jack, you'll see two sets of 3 pads labelled VCC and GND. Jumper them like this:

VCC [x]     [ ] VCC
    [x]     [x]
GND [ ]     [x] GND

Do both PCBs the same.

Mount Header Pins

You should have received header pins with your Pro Micro. Insert the short side into the bottom of PCB and solder them in.

Tip: To keep them aligned you can slip the Pro Micro over the pins but do not solder the Pro Micro at this time.

Tack the pins on the end and inspect. If the pins are not quite aligned with the board, heat one side with your iron and press it in. It should make a satisfactory "click".

Solder the rest of the pins (it won't take much solder here).

The long part of the pins should be protruding from the bottom. We'll trim these later after soldering the Pro Micro, but you can leave them be for now.

Mount the Pro Micro

Pay special attention on this step. There are several things that need to be done in the right order and orientation.

Tip: Flash your Pro Micro now before you mount it. You can test it by using a multimeter to measure the voltage between VCC and RAW. It should be around 5V. If it's bad it'll be a lot less headache than desoldering.

Mount the 2 switches under the Pro Micro

1. Grab two of your switches.
2. Snap the switches into your plate in the spots that overlay the Pro Micro (on the left side that's column 2, and on the right that's column 5).
3. Line up your PCB with the switches and solder them between the header pins

Mount the Pro Micro

You'll be working from the bottom of the board for this step.

• On the left PCB the Pro Micro should be smooth side up (facing you)
• On the right PCB the Pro Micro should be component side up (facing you)

It gets easier if you notice that on the Pro Micros and the PCBs there is "RAW" printed. The raw pin must go through the hole with the same sign.

If you made my same mistake, instead of desoldering without the right equipment you can try to just cut the dividers on the Pro Micro and detach it by breaking the header pins.

Mount the rest of the switches

Home stretch. Gently snap in the rest of the switches and solder them.

This would have been easier with a plate, I needed the help of a friend in order to have them aligned correctly.

Connect the Pro Micro

Given that sourcing the trrs jacks (even TRS if you go without leds) is a little bit difficult in Europe (I got mine from aliexpress), we are gonna connect the two Pro Micros directly.

The Pro Micros just need communication between three of their pins.

This means that the Minidox works if you connect the correct pins with a simple copper cable.

The pins are:

• Data pin on the right (pin 6 in figure)
• VCC pin, left side (21)
• GND pin, just below the RAW pin (23)

In my case I have used some old molex cable because raw copper wires tend to be very weak and break apart in a few days.

Troubleshooting

Column 2 or column 5 doesn't work (under the controller)

If you're having trouble with a dead column right over your Pro Micro it could be that you've got a short from the switch pins. Try to get under there and bend them down.

One side isn't working

• Double check if the copper wires are in working conditions and if you have connected the right pins.
• Check that the wires are insulated and that they do not touch the other pins.

End Result

Beautiful? W.

Cyber-utopia and vaporwave

Recently I decided to change the css of my blog to reflect a vaporwave-ish aestethic.

Although I don't listen to a lot of electronic music, 2814 has been my go to music when I am programming and I go through a lot of James Ferraro's works during the day.

What is the reason for my recent obsession on vaporwave culture?

A dream that disappeared

The narrative of Western civilization has become a broken record... should we be surprised when a chopped and screwed trip through the cold war period resonates broadly?

Vaporwave creates a language to reflect on the inability to break free from the chains of an Orwellian culture.

Internet gave me a personal space, a community, heck even a lot of fun masked by a sense of purpose for the free software culture.

But from a higher point of view Internet failed us. The Cyberspace has been dead.

John Barlow on the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace wrote:

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

But at a certain point in time the Cyberspace didn't want to be left alone and with its own feet headed to real world. Cyberspace blended with the Meatspace

Every manifestation of the Cyberspace into reality is some sort of virus that eats bites of our existences in the Meatspace and translates that to bytes that are stored in virtual treasure chests.

Real life communication is divoured into digital data by Facebook, Amazon doesn't stop at our doorbells anymore but creeps into our house, and sleeping is no more a function of how much we are offline but some sort of distorted self analytics.

There is no shame when a web giant plays with the emotions of the user of the platforms, or sells them.

All of that was done by drying out the so called Hackerspace and transmuting it into "Dataspace", where experiment are conducted on people by means of data and algorithms.

Data on which platforms are built and people are chained to.

Corporate smooth Jazz

Floral Shoppe traces the outlines of the mental prison in which we now live, it gives us hope of one day transcending it. It reminds us what real freedom, the freedom of the heart, tastes like.

In the novel Neuromance by cyberpunk father William Gibson the Internet is conceived as some sort of "consensual allucination". In the world where that book was written Internet is just a collective delusion.

Vaporwave forces us to recognize our helplessness with the Dataspace and for me it is a remembrace of a cyber-utopia that never got off the ground.

Late Stage Capitalism meets FOSS

source

Some shallow thoughts from my tiny virtual space

I am not the kind of guy who goes to concerts. Ever.

I prefer studio recordings because in these, the logical thoughts of the artist emerge as the track comes to life and reaches our ears. I have always been attracted by that, much more than to the sprinkle of emotions that come from venues and theaters.

In my case the exceptions are the live performances of Dale Crover (from The Melvins) and Jeff Mangum. Both of which were some kind of unshaped epiphanic experiences for me.

Milan, December 2015, The Melvins were at the end of their most recent European tour when Jeff Pinkus drops the bass guitar, tunes the effects pedal and kicks the bass with his bare foot until the right repetition of sounds comes out of the speakers. Slowly, each one of the members leaves the stage, sounds are still coming from the earlier kicks to the speakers up to my ears.

Once home, the performance by The Melvins made me recognize the different stages of communication.

We can think of three stages. The first one is trial, or experimentation, field test. This first phase is as obvious as it is accidental.

The second stage is about excess. Excess is to acknowledge that what was played today will be different to what will be played tomorrow. A draft becomes a singular work that may not come to an end.

The last one is the most important one if we want to understand the dynamics of the Internet: dissipation. With the act of dissipation, the work of the artist that reached its own way on a tiny and crucial fraction of time, that is the moment, folds on itself, and it is forever lost by an act of absence, the absence of objective memory.

Internet dynamics

On the internet hounding supersedes dissipation.

Hounding is the reason why thousands of men from different backgrounds congregate in small Facebook groups and share photos of their friends, wives and relevant others.

On the original Italian blog post I reported some Italian references on this phenomenon that don’t have much cultural significance for the English readers. Therefore, I want to explain the phenomenon in other words.

The discussion about these Facebook groups in Italy consist of an online phenomenon regarding group of males playing what they call the game of "What would you do" with sexually or less explicit photos of friends and wives.

The game is as far as ever from an online rpg or creative. It degrades every time in vulgar and extremist comments about the body of the girls depicted.

I do believe that one of the many reasons to explain the inception of these online groups is the impossibility to overcome the absence of dissipation in online communication.

Machines do not remember but they never make us forget, they cross our space online with a continuous stream of photos and other people's moments. Algorithms do not follow our placid flow of continuous time online and they snap it in collages of instants.

Recollection

In my first online experience, the interactions I had did not have the quality of recollection. I divided my time between irc and mailing lists. I felt the obligation to archive every tiny succession of words that gave some light to me.

(I still do).

Then web caches arrived, the Wayback Machine, Reddit, social networks. Nowdata can hardly ever disappear.

It seems to me that it is just a worthy form of tenacity, not remembrance in any form.

For the joy of archivists and the ones with a wistful gaze. And still unpleasant for someone.

(This translation is for Madeline, thank you for still taking the time to read my blog)